MUQAM RAK

UNESCO protected uyghur song cycle

Sunday 2 September 4pm, Riverside theatres

Muqam rak

An immersive night of Uyghur Culture!

The Uyghur people are a Turkic ethnic group who live in Central/ and Inner Asia and for the first time in Australia, their 1,000 year old UNESCO protected song cycle, Muqam Rak, will be performed at the Riverside Theatres for the Sydney Sacred Music Festival 2018.

This transformative night of ancient culture and Sufi-influenced sacred music from the Silk Road features Shohrat Tursun on voice and dutar (2-stringed long-neck lute) and Tayir Imen on traditional percussion.

To bring the timeless Muqam Rak to life for this Australian première, these master musicians are accompanied by Bukhchuluun Ganburged and Dr Kim Cunio, highly renowned musicians of Silk Road lineage. The 4-piece ensemble will be supported in traditional dance by the Sydney Uyghur Dance Ensemble.

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Artists

Shohrat Tursun - Dutar and vocals

Shohrat is a master dutar player, singer and actor. He is an ambassador for his culture’s ancient music and has appeared in concerts in Japan, China, USA and Germany. He has also recorded a CD in Japan.

Tayir Imen - Daf

Tayir has recently arrived in Australia and lives in Adelaide, He has toured internationally playing traditional Uyghur music as a percussionist.

Bukhchuluun Ganburged– Morin khuur (horse head fiddle)

Bukhchuluun Ganburged (Bukhu) is a master student of the Music and Dance Conservatory of Ulaanbaatar. Bukhu performs the folk musics of Mongolia, while exploring the aural dimensions of sounds generated by traditional instruments and harmonic overtone vocal techniques.

His music brings a contemporary take on the tradition of Mongolian bards of the middle ages and those of ancient times, acting as a national memory bank by working mythologies, historic figures and events into traditional verse form.

Bukhu combines virtuosic morin Khuur(horse head fiddlehorse head fiddle) and khuumii(harmonic overtone throat singing) skills to transmit the harmony of Mongolian Shamanic culture through time and space. He has played for audiences in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Czech, Luxemburg, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Austria and Australia, with the Morin Khuur Ensemble, Khangal Quartet and Domog folk band.

Dr Kim Cunio - harmonium, voice and baglama

Australia's leading composer and interpreter of sacred traditional music, Kim is a Senior Lecturer in Composition and Convenor of Musicology at the Australian National University. Kim has studied with a number of Australia's finest musicians including Australian composer Nigel Butterly, conductor and producer Eric Clapham, and Jazz guitar legend Ike Isaacs. His work with the ABC has seen him compose and produce music projects for CD, radio and television over the last decade. He is one of Australia's most accomplished researching composers and was awarded an ABC Golden Manuscript Award in 2004 in recognition for his work with traditional and Islamic music.

Kim works in new art music, music research, traditional music, acousmatics and screen. Recent commissions have included the Art in Islam exhibition, and the Garden & Cosmos exhibition featuring Indian sacred music, both at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Other recent CDs include Music of the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Sacred Fire: The Music of Hildegard of Bingen, and The Temple Project: The Thread of Life, a reuniting of Arabic and Jewish musicians.

Kim was also the musical director for Sydney Interfaith at Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney for many years. He is part of an international push to preserve the dying art of Eastern Jewish (mizrachi) music.